On the Edge of the World: Reflections on Anti-Fragility

Guest post by @ashebytes. Ashe Magalhaes is a founder & ML engineer building relational intelligence.

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Edge City, which was that part of the spectrum of being that lay between the ego, with its layers of conditioning, and the annihilating energy bath of the Void. To live in Edge City meant to live totally in the here and now. - Jay Stevens

When you travel to the edge of the world, Patagonia in my case, you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center. In fact, looking straight ahead often means looking into a sheer, forested rock face, the result of glacial carving across multiple ice ages. A timeline of creation my brain cannot fathom. Time pulled me along differently down there. I was different down there. As I felt myself on the edge of the earth, in Edge City, feet dangling over the side, I marveled at how safe I felt. ‍

How anti-fragile.

To be anti-fragile is to increase in capability and thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, and volatility. San Martín de los Andes is a resort ski town nestled between cliffs and the cold waters of Lago Lácar, a landscape forged by catastrophic forces. The same tectonic collisions that raised the Andes, the glaciers that gouged out its valleys, and the volcanic eruptions that periodically dust the town in ash have produced one of the most beautiful and resilient places on Earth. It's a town that exists because of geological violence, not in spite of it.

And this was our home for the month-long Edge City Patagonia program, which invited hundreds of builders to explore frontier tech programs across consciousness, psychedelics, AI, crypto, and more.

Out of the gate, the programming was intimidating, designed to expand us. We launched into daily 2-hour breathwork sessions, with emotional tectonic shifts and eruptions that could be felt throughout the room as we journeyed inwards. We kayaked and ran and meditated and had astrology sessions. We sipped mate and read Jorge Luis Borges aloud to each other. He wrote
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Out on the street, going down the stairways inside Constitution Station, riding the subway, every one of the faces seemed familiar to me.

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And that's what it started to feel like in Edge City, with my peers. Feet dangling over the side, I realized I was not as far away from home as I had thought.

In a way, my time with Edge City Patagonia was a precursor of my months to come, during which uncertainty has rocked the tech and AI world, as it's become very clear we've stepped into something new. I feel pleasantly surprised at how grounded I feel internally, at how I have become the positive one in my peer groups.
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To live in Edge City meant to live totally in the here and now.

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Edge City Patagonia, rugged as it was, gave me a crash course in anti-fragility. There is nothing to do but surrender to the volatility shaping me, smoothing me, refining me, beautifully.

This moment in tech, in history, is intimidating because it is designed to expand us. I feel grateful to Edge City Patagonia for showing me myself: feet dangling over the edge, giggling.

This is a guest post by @ashebytes. The views are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Edge City.

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